The world has moved a block away from Prairie, right here in Elmhurst.

We have a new neighbor in our business park. They’ve constructed a 25’ tall stainless steel sculpture of a globe. Originally it stood outside of Sears (Willis) Tower in Chicago, which is undergoing extensive renovations. Our neighboring business, involved with those renovations, removed the structure and reconstructed it on the front lawn of their production facilities, about 100 yards from Prairie’s front door.

What seems like more than a lifetime ago, there were only three sales organizations in the United States for a revolutionary product, the Nomadic Instand. I was fortunate enough to work for one of them.

For those of you who might not know the history of the Instand, it was the first self-locking “pop-up” style display. In fact, Nomadic invented the portable display as we know it today, and was mentioned in Exhibitor Magazine’s “10 Ideas that Changed the Trade Show Industry”, in 2007. But that’s a whole other story.

While things are heating up here at Prairie for the fall 2013 trade show and event season, weather-wise, it has been a surprisingly mild August in the Chicago area. We normally have high temperatures and high humidity. Perfect weather for going home, hiding out in the basement or the part of the house where the air conditioning works best, and cracking open a book. At least this is how I deal with August.

With the weather being so nice, we are eating outside, taking bike rides, getting the resident beagle out for a longer than usual walk and just spending less time brooding about the heat. Also, no time for reading dog-eared paperbacks bought at garage sales and used bookstores. Books written by the likes of Elmore Leonard.

About ten years ago, a close associate urged me to start writing a book based on my experiences in sales and the trade show and event industries. I tried. There are several dozen pages along with edits and rewrites stored on my computer and backed up on a hard drive. I learned that being an author involves time and dedication to the task. When raising a family and running a business, those are two luxuries that are in short supply.